


The Secrets of Dr Leonard H. McCoy

by Inferification



Series: Trust & Recovery [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9922874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inferification/pseuds/Inferification
Summary: Three scenes between Jim and Bones in which the doctor shares his darkest secrets with his best friend. Talking about the past to somebody he trusts is the first step towards healing Leonard takes. Jim just happens to be the person he trusts enough to talk to.A story about the importance of sharing your pain and the support given by the people who care about you told in three chapters.





	1. Joanna

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in a new fandom and I'm a little nervous, so I hope people enjoy it. It's intended to be the first in a series with endgame Jim/Bones, focusing on their relationship and its development from friendship to a relationship.
> 
> This work is going to cover some dark topics and each chapter will have its own, additional warnings at the beginning.
> 
> For this chapter: Mentions of the death of a child. Mentions of Divorce, Depictions of Violence

Everybody assumes that Jim is emotionally repressed in some way. In truth, he just selects who he tells all his deepest, darkest secrets to very carefully. Leonard McCoy, _Bones_ , earned the right to his heart in six months. Jim’s not blind, the man is gorgeous, all strong lines and handsome features. He thought Bones was good looking before he got himself cleaned up in their shared bathroom, but the first view of his CMO, clean shaven and in cadet reds, sticks in his mind as the first time he understood the attraction of a man in uniform.

By the end of their first year, he’s told Bones nearly everything there is to know about him. Bones knows all about Jim’s tumultuous relationship with his mother and how it was only now that they were reconciling. He learned about Tarsus after a lecture on it where the asshole leading it decided to drag them into discussion around if Kodos’ actions were at all justifiable (no, they weren’t). Bones even knows about Jim’s abusive relationship with his uncle and has been working through the built up anger and betrayal with him, making sure that he’s going to be able to deal with the pressures of being Captain.

Bones is one hell of a psychologist and, if the rumors can be believed, an even better surgeon. Jim gets to have Bones’ legendary healing hands all to himself on the rare occasion that he needs a doctor, but he’s never needed surgery during his time at the academy. His friend is so gentle, clever fingers revealing the true intentions behind his angry rants and dour scowls. If half the interns in Starfleet weren’t deathly terrified of him, Jim would have thought the act was too obvious for anyone to believe it. Bones is secretly a cuddly marshmallow who can’t leave injured birds on the sidewalk or walk past an abandoned kitten without bringing it back to their dorm. (Jim’s seen it with his own eyes, Bones an alarming shade of red until he helps find the kitten a new home.)

His best friend never judges, he might _yell_ at Jim if he’s done something particularly stupid, but he doesn’t judge him for his past or his choices. He gives good advice, not that Jim takes it. He listens, then thinks of about ten reasons why he doesn’t agree, and goes ahead with whatever supposedly dangerous plan Bones thinks is stupid. Proving Bones right is a pastime.

When Jim signs up for the summer break survival course, Bones comes along with him after explaining to him multiple times exactly why this was a terrible idea. Jim has a bingo card of Bones-isms which he completely filled up during this particular scolding. Highlights were the reminder that he has the immune system of a hyperactive toddler on a sugar high, psychological sensitivity to being without a ready food supply, and would be without proper medical care or food for the whole month. Needless to say he signed up anyway with Bones scowling away beside him, steady stream of profanity and worry pouring out under his breath.

They get paired off and dropped, unconscious, because Starfleet are exactly the kind of bastards Bones describes them as and gassed them in the shuttle. While it definitely alleviated Bones’ panic, it has left them both with a blinding headache.

“You okay, Bones?” he asks, just as soon as it feels like his brain isn’t going to leak out of his ears if he speaks.

His friend replies by throwing up. Despite their meeting, Bones has never actually thrown up _on_ him before, but apparently there’s a first time for everything. Luckily most of the vomit hits his shoes rather than his clothes.

“So much for having a big meal in our stomachs,” Jim says, rubbing his friend’s back.

“This is the worst thing you have _ever_ dragged me into,” Bones gasps in-between further bouts of retching.

Eventually there’s nothing left.

In the time it takes for Bones to methodically empty his stomach, Jim scans the landscape. It’s full of sweeping cliffs and unforgiving rocks. The landscape is barren, which makes the priority water. Shelter and food are also important, given the cool temperature. It seems like they’re in a mountainous desert climate.

All they have on them is a communicator for emergencies, a metal bottle with a lid, and their clothes.

“C’mon then,” Jim says, hauling Bones to his feet.

They head in the direction of the nearest cliffs, Jim keeping an eye out for any plant growth or animal tracks which could give away the location of water. If not, then they may have to drink their urine for a few days, which is unpalatable and, according to Bones’ whispered remarks during their brief, dangerous because it can shut down your kidneys after prolonged exposure.

Bones finds water first. He’s walking a little behind Jim when he cries out. Apparently his two left feet have struck again and Jim’s friend has managed to trip and fall, ending up rolling down a steep slope and somehow coming out of it with only a few scratches. By the time Jim finds a safe way down, Bones has found the beginnings of a small stream; he’s stupidly pleased with himself.

“It’s probably filled with parasites that are going to dissolve our stomachs from the inside and rot our flesh until we’re nothing but carrion,” he tells Jim, seemingly delighted.

“Did I ever tell you how much I adore your positive, sunshiny outlook on life?” Jim grins, filling his metal flask and taking a small sip of water. “This stream literally starts five foot away from us, it’s filtered through miles of rock.”

Bones sighs. “You could at least have boiled it first.”

Jim laughs and raises an eyebrow. The land is completely barren and his friend knows it.

“So where are we going next?” Bones asks.

“I was thinking we’d follow the stream, there’s a good chance of finding food near water and hopefully we can find some sort of cave to sleep in,” Jim tells him. This is just like Tarsus, except he’s not being chased by people who want him dead, he has a friend with him, and they have a way of escaping if things end up going badly.

They head off down the stream, Bones sarcastically saluting him.

“Is this difficult for you?”

Jim looks back at Bones, whose brow is furrowed in the characteristic ‘worried about Jim’ position. Bless him.

“Not really,” he replies honestly. “I’ve been through worse than this and come out the other side. I guess it has some negative associations and all that psycho-babble you enjoy, but I also used to go camping as a kid a lot, so there’s more positive than negative there.”

When his mother was planetside, she was the very picture of the perfect mother. They would go on long hikes and camping trips for ‘bonding purposes’ in which they would fish for their dinner and spend days running through the forest playing make-believe. It never quite made up for the long absences without even a comm for his birthday, but it was still _something_.

“How about you?” Jim asks.

Bones shrugs. “We didn’t really go camping when I was a kid. I was always buried up to my ears in schoolwork or a book and Papa was always busy at the hospital. I went on some awesome trips with Mama though, all over the world. She’s an archaeologist and over the summer, when she wasn’t teaching, we’d pack up and go to a dig. Papa never came, so it was just our thing.”

Bones is smiling, eyes lost in memory and Jim can’t help but feel a little familiar jealousy over the fact that his friend had a mother who sticks around for more than a couple of weeks here and there. Eleanor’s peach cobbler is a gift from the heavens.

“We got stuck in an old tomb in the Sahara for three days when a sandstorm came up unexpectedly, so I guess that’s the closest I’ve ever been to this. Nothing like you.”

Jim grins and pats Bones on the shoulder. “We’ll make a rugged survivalist out of you yet!”

They wander on for a few more miles, finally finding their way into scrub, waist high grass, (“We’ll come out of this covered in ticks, Jim.”), and finally the beginnings of a forest. There have been no handy caves, but the presence of trees makes it possible to build a shelter.

It’s just a simple lean-to, all they can manage before the light fades and they cuddle up together, Jim wrapped around Bones. They could blame it on a need to conserve body heat, but in truth they do this fairly regularly anyway. Jim likes to hold people in the night, like a safety blanket, whereas Bones just doesn’t care either way. He tends to run cold though, so Jim gets away with sharing a bed more often than not.

Whichever way they look at it, the ground is not as comfortable as a bed, even if that bed is Starfleet regulation, so incredibly lumpy. Bones falls asleep first, his breathing becoming deep and even. Jim must follow after, because when he wakes up, it’s pitch black and he needs a piss.

Bones has the luxury of being able to close his eyes and not open them again until morning, but Jim has to get up in the middle of the night nine times out of ten. Usually it’s because he dreamt about some new engineering project and has to write it all down before the memory fades.

He stumbles back into their lean-to to find Bones curled up in a tight ball, whimpering quietly. Much like Jim, his best friend also has the occasional nightmare, though it’s something they don’t talk about. When Jim wakes up screaming, Bones always makes him a cup of strong tea and watches old 20th century movies with him until morning. In contrast, Bones pretends his don’t happen and Jim gets a long lecture on STIs and the importance of using protection if he tries to talk to him about it.

Jim rubs Bones' back and slides back into position behind him. He knows his friend is awake by the shaky breaths and occasional muffled sob that he lets out, so he just holds on tight as he can until Bones drifts back to sleep.

***

When they wake up, the early morning sun has just started to peak over the horizon. Bones is sleep-mussed and adorable until he opens his mouth and Jim is reminded just how _terrifying_ he is without coffee. His friend ends up sticking his head in the river just to be able to wake up, which Jim is going to use against him in the future. He also takes the opportunity to shamelessly ogle his ass, because Bones is hot and Jim’s only human.

Bones goes foraging, while Jim stays at their camp, gets a fire going and starts building traps. He’s hungry by now, but it’s a gentle, empty feeling rather than the all-encompassing gnawing sensation of going a week without food. None-the-less, when Bones returns, jacket full of apples, they tuck in with abandon.

“This seems too easy,” he says after a moment. “This is meant to be an insane survival challenge and so far the only real threat was that you’d fall off a cliff.”

Bones scowls at him, but his eyes sparkle with amusement. Even he can acknowledge that unless it’s surgery, he has the reflexes of a wobbly week-old kitten.

“Maybe they decided the injury rate of this awful thing was too high,” Bones replies.

All command track cadets are required to take this course at some point during their four years at the Academy and afterwards at least half of them end up in medical. Bones told him this statistic before they signed up, grumbling about broken bones and burns. He follows Jim anyway though.

Jim laughs, only for him to pale as two men appear behind Bones, phasers pointed directly at his friend’s exposed back. He throws himself forward, pinning Bones to the floor moments before phaser fire flies over the space where his head was.

The men stare, seemingly surprised at his quick reactions, which gives him all the time he needs to throw one of the sticks from the center of their fire at the men. They duck and he drags Bones to his feet, pelting into the undergrowth hand in hand.

“Starfleet Central, come in,” he yells into his comm. “This is Cadet Kirk and Doctor McCoy. We are under fire from hostile forces. Requesting immediate beam-out and back-up.”

All he gets is static.

They run flat out for at least an hour before they stop, the Academy’s focus on physical training giving them the speed and stamina to make the terrifying journey. Every time they stopped, thinking they’d lost their pursuers, they would face a volley of phaser fire until Bones growled something about a set-up before snapping their communicator in half and throwing it into the bushes.

Jim smiles at that, having worked it out around the same time.

“Have I ever told you how much I hate all this military bullshit?” Bones whispers, voice harsh and low. “I’m a fucking _doctor_ , not a soldier. I like to fix people, not shoot them while their back is turned.”

“No, I don’t think you ever have,” Jim replies mildly, getting a light shove in the shoulder for his efforts. “To be fair Starfleet is a mostly exploratory peacekeeping force now. The focus is more on research than military tactics.”

“Unless you’re security or command track.”

Jim snorts. “I suppose. We have a lot of classes on tactical analysis and diplomacy.”

Bones finds their next shelter at that point, falling through a light covering of topsoil and leaves into a natural cave system. Nowhere in their tactics classes has anyone mentioned bringing a friend along who will find almost everything you could wish for by accident.

There are four caves linked by narrow passageways, and somewhere the stream must go back underground because they have a fresh source of water down here as well. Theoretically they could just hideout here until the two weeks are over, but Jim is determined to make this a success. That includes setting this place up as a home base complete with food stores, defenses, and some way to prevent them from being completely uncomfortable at night.

His thorough search of the caves is why it takes him so long to notice how quiet Bones is being. His friend is conspicuous by his silence, leaning against the first cave wall with his eyes closed.

“Hey Bones, this looks like an awesome place for us to stay,” he says, clapping Bones on the shoulder. When Bones merely grunts, he gets concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I broke a couple of ribs when I landed,” he says through gritted teeth.

Jim pulls out the small torch he brought along, their _luxury item_ chosen from a list, and moves to pull up Bones’ shirt only to have his hands slapped away.

“Sorry,” he says, lifting his shirt himself. Bones winces as his arms rise and in the end Jim has to help him.

There’s a lot of reddening around his chest and as Jim presses carefully, Bones breathes in sharply at the touch. It’s almost impossible to tell a broken rib from a bruised rib without a tricorder, but from the amount of pain Bones is in, Jim suspects his assessment is correct. 

He pulls off his own shirt without hesitation, ignoring Bones’ irritated comments, and begins tearing it into strips long enough to reach around his chest. They need to wrap the ribs and in the absence of bandages, this will have to do. It will stabilize any breaks and allow Bones to move with a minimum of pain.

“I’ll be okay,” Bones says, giving Jim a quick kiss on the forehead after he’s done. “I’ve had worse.”

He doesn’t want to leave Bones, but they need food and some way to conceal their cave. There’s no way Bones is climbing out of here until they rig some sort of ladder, so he has to go alone, leaving Bones defenseless and injured.

He’s as quick as he can, rigging a lattice over the hole in the ground with wood and covering it with leaves. It blends in with the forest floor, so Jim marks a nearby tree as a reminder of its location and strikes out into the forest. Food is plentiful, but there isn’t much that can last longer than a few days. Nuts are about all he can scrounge up. It looks like he’ll have to go foraging at least daily to keep them well-fed.

Voices make him freeze, and he shimmies up the nearest tree as quickly as he can.

The two men from earlier soon reappear, one with a slight burn mark down the side of his face, the other with an exceptionally bloody nose. He also seems to be nursing his ribs.

“Two _fucking_ second-year cadets. One of them isn’t even on command track.”

“That’s why he didn’t put up much of a fight then,” the second one laughs. “Bet he’s one of the idiots who opts out of hand-to-hand for _ethical reasons_.”

Jim’s blood turns to ice. Bones took basic hand-to-hand, but refuses to learn any techniques other than incapacitating ones. In a memorable exchange with the instructor, caught on video and circulating the campus intranet, Bones tells the man clearly and succinctly that while he would defend himself, he would rather die than kill anything himself. The instructor had snapped that it was a weakness and Bones simply laughed and asked if he was using a caveman’s definition. Trying a different track, the man suggested that Bones was being a judgemental asshole and wanting other people to do the killing for him, to which Jim’s friend reminded the man that a range of ethics was part of the teaching of Starfleet and that he was currently the one being a judgemental asshole. Bones got a demerit, but never had to go further than that in hand-to-hand.

If these men have hurt Bones, Jim can accept that as part of the exercise. Laughing about it afterwards though, reacting with pride at having beaten someone physically weaker than them, fills him with fury.

Later on, when they’re Captain and CMO, Bones will tell the crew that Jim went ‘full-Ewok’ on the assholes. Now though, Jim just falls through the branches like an avenging angel, managing to have them both incapacitated within seconds. He strips them down to their underwear, taking everything of use. They’re fully stocked with a basic first-aid kit, enough rations to last a week, a knife each, and phasers. He uses their comm to reach Starfleet, explaining what had happened and that in a hostile environment, he would have killed them both. Nobody touches his crew.

He eventually leaves them hogtied for whatever evac team is sent to find them and hurries back to the cave. Jim keeps the comm on him just in case Bones is too injured for the first-aid kit to deal with.

Bones is sitting up when he gets there, looking pissed. Jim almost laughs with relief. That’s Bones’ default with nearly everyone apart from patients who are there through no fault of their own and, for some reason, him. He’s shivering, but soon stops once Jim gets him wrapped up in the thick jacket he stole. There’s blood crusted all down one side of his face that Jim gently cleans off with a bit of his shirt, shushing Bones when he tries to speak.

He’s methodical, scanning Bones with the stolen tricorder and carefully taping up his broken fingers, clearly having been stamped on. His friend has a concussion, evidently faking unconsciousness to avoid being beaten further. He also has a collection of angry bruises, though thankfully his ribs haven’t sustained further damage. They don’t speak until the butterfly strips holding a nasty gash together have been applied to his face.

“I’m alright, Jim,” Bones says, pulling him in tight for a hug. “I’m okay.”

“No you’re not,” Jim half-yells, pulling back. “You have broken ribs, have been beaten half-to-Hell by some limp-dicks, and you’re trying to tell me it’s okay?”

Bones just chuckles. “Now you know how I feel every time you show up after the bar-brawl-of-the-week.”

Jim gapes, and then shuts his mouth with an audible click. That’s more than fair.

“Sometimes you remind me of my daughter,” Bones says.

Jim’s head snaps round to stare at Bones. His friend doesn’t _have_ a daughter. He _dotes_ on the kids in medical. There is no way that Bones could have a daughter and firstly, not tell Jim, and secondly, not comm her ever.

“Although she had the excuse of actually _being_ four.” Bones laughs to himself quietly.

“I didn’t know you have a kid,” Jim says.

Bones’ face closes off a bit, eyes distant. “Yeah, well, I used to.”

That’s about as unambiguous as it gets. Unless the biological parent is a rapist, commits a crime against their child and cannot be rehabilitated, or gives up their rights voluntarily, there is no way to deny them access to their child.

Bones _had_ a daughter.

“What happened?” Jim asks, sitting next to Bones and taking his hand. Usually their positions are reversed and it was Bones listening to him.

“I did my undergraduate degree online, so I ended up going to med school at seventeen. I guess it was fair to say I was pretty sheltered growing up and I kinda went a bit mad in college.”

Bones grins, lost in memory. Jim just can’t believe he went to med school at _seventeen_. No wonder he’s a full attending.

“I guess I wasn’t careful enough because one day Jocelyn told me she was pregnant and the kid was mine.”

Jocelyn, the ex-wife. The woman who, as far as Jim can tell, single-handedly shattered Bones’ self-worth.

“Her parents insisted we got married; they’re real old-money types, and we had Joanna. She was perfect and for the next four years, me and Joss made a good go at it, then she got sick.”

Bones’ voice cracks on the word ‘sick’.

“Iverson’s disease. It took two years for her to die.”

Jim doesn’t know what that means now, but later he’ll look it up. It’s a neuromuscular disease with no known cause and no known cure. The victim’s muscles slowly get weaker and weaker until they stop breathing or their heart gives out. He does know, however, that watching someone you love die slowly when you can't do anything about it must be hell.

“Jocelyn blamed me in the end. I was working every hour I wasn’t by Joanna’s side I was trying to isolate what was causing the disease and find a way to fix it. It doesn’t make any sense, but she hated me by the end. We got divorced six months after we buried our daughter.”

Bones wipes at his eyes angrily with the hand that isn’t taped up and Jim knows, deep down, that Bones blames himself too. His friend is the kind of compassionate man you imagine all doctors must be when you’re young and don’t realize how much influence money and prestige has on people’s careers. Bones doesn’t just care about the _outcomes_ , he cares about the _person_ too and the process they have to go through. He takes each failure personally, though thankfully they’re few and far between with most people choosing to go out via euthanasia now-a-days. It’s rare for people to die under the care of doctors.

Jim doesn’t apologize, because he hates the way people always offer _him_ empty apologies about his father. Nothing anyone can say can make things different.

“If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m willing to listen,” he says instead. “Seriously, comm me. Any time, any place.”

Bones leans on him a little, body warmth seeping into Jim.

“I’ll try, kid. I’ll try.”

***

In the end they manage the two weeks easily. The other people sent after them never find them, and Jim teaches Bones how to make traps and other clever things to make their stay more bearable. It’s fair to say that the instructors are fairly impressed when they beam in to assess their performance. Bones only needs a few hours under the osteogenerator to get the bones healing nicely and Jim came out of the experience with some hairline fractures in his knuckles which he didn’t notice.

A picture of Joanna also appears in their room, proudly on display like it should be. She’s a sweet little girl, with Bones’ dark eyes and her mother’s freckled complexion. A little bit of weight seems to be lifted off Bones’ shoulders now he can talk freely about Jo. He has many sweet and hilarious stories about being a dad to tell him and it’s a whole new side to his friend that Jim relishes getting to hear about.

It’s fairly amusing how Jim gets a lot of flak about being a wild card when Bones is the one who was a teenage parent, but he keeps quiet about it. Bones trusts him, and he’s not about to ruin that trust by blabbing about Bones’ dead child to the next person who calls him irresponsible.

In return Bones puts him down as his emergency medical contact like Jim did with him. He’s never been happier.


	2. David

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Mentions of Character Death, Mentions of Shuttle Crashes, Mentions of Adoption
> 
> I've been pleasantly surprised by the positive response so far. Thank you so much!

Their first winter break at the Academy, Jim and Bones stay in dorms. Bones works at Starfleet Medical, giving as many doctors time off over the break as he can, and Jim doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Their second winter break is spent at the farm in Iowa, tidying up the house before it's sold and salvaging Jim’s belongings. Their third winter break, after their survival course and another grueling semester, Bones invites Jim back to Georgia for a proper McCoy family Christmas.

They arrive on the 23rd, Bones only managing to get four days off. Jim has to talk Bones through the short shuttle ride to get there and they make it without any unfortunate vomiting incidents. To be fair, Bones has gotten a lot better at controlling his aviophobia since he organized a conference for his fellow aviophobes, but this particular shuttle trip has been a little bumpy due to the storm brewing over the Great Plains.

Most people would have laughed as Bones turned an alarming shade of white and reaches for Jim’s hand reflexively. Jim, however, simply grips tight as he could and gets Bones to recite the names of all the bones in the human body until the turbulence stops.

Now, standing on the steps of Bones’ childhood home, it’s Jim’s turn to be afraid. It’s especially terrifying when Eleanor McCoy gives him a warm hug before welcoming him into their home, as if Jim is one of the family. She’s beautiful, aging gracefully the way most people can only dream about, blonde hair only touched with white, laughter lines and wrinkles making her look wise and kind.

“I’m so glad someone got my son to pull his head out of his ass and come back home to see his Mama,” she says, giving Jim a kiss on the cheek.

She hugs Bones next and Jim can’t help but notice the way they cling to each other, Bones’ eyes tightly shut.

“I missed you Leonard,” Eleanor says, before clipping him around the head gently. “Don’t do this to me again; I’m too old for this nonsense.”

Bones just smiles at that, the kind of smile that Jim wants to kiss off his face because he’s so beautiful. It’s a recent development, since their survival training. Jim’s finally come to realize that he’s falling in love with his best friend and it’s one of the most terrifying things in the world.

The house is surprisingly small for what was once the home of two doctors, one medical, one archaeological, with only two bedrooms. Apparently it had been a four-bed home during World War Three, but two of the rooms are now separate studies. He has no problem sharing a room with Bones, that’s their default at the Academy, but sleeping in the same bed is another matter entirely. They’ve done it a lot, especially when Jim was still transitioning into Starfleet life and kept up a steady stream of drunken episodes, but he can’t help but worry that all his non-platonic feelings are going to fall out all over his friend if they share a bed now.

Jim’s not exactly sure what he’s expecting when he heads into Bones’ room, but it’s certainly not _this_. One wall is filled with smiling holos of Eleanor and Bones, in various places around the world. The opposite wall is filled with real-life _paper_ books. Battered paperbacks with everything from Aristotle, to Harry Potter, to Lucy James without a single medical textbook or nod to Bones’ profession. With the two walls covered, it leaves just enough room for a twin bed, shoved up against the wall of pictures, and a desk.

It’s very sweet. Jim was kind of expecting stacks of heavy textbooks and medical diagrams.

He throws himself onto the bed, grinning as he bounces a little, and gets a jolt of surprise when he stares at the ceiling and it’s covered in little glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Aw, Bones,” he says. “This is cute. What’s with all the stars Dr. scared-of-space?”

Bones frowns at him from the dresser where he’s putting away their clothes. “Got no problem with space from the ground.”

Jim just grins back at him, legs dangling off the bed and head propped up on his arm.

“Shut up, kid,” he says.

Jim raises his eyebrows and tries his best to look innocent. “I didn’t say anything!”

“Yeah, well. You were _thinkin’_ it so loud you might well have been.”

His accent drawls out stronger than Jim’s ever heard it and his heart gives a tight clench at how attractive he finds it.

“So you just happened to be one of those kids who stuck stars on their ceiling _and_ ended up joining Starfleet.”

Bones sighs. “You’re reading too much into this, Jim. Turn off that over-active mind of yours and stop over-thinking everything.”

He knows right then that he’s hit a delicate spot for Bones. There’s something his friend isn’t willing to talk about and that Jim can’t push for. Bones is as damaged as Jim is, though he hides it better, and not nearly as far along the healing process as he is.

“So,” he says after a moment of awkward silence. “D’you reckon I can convince your Mom to show me your baby photos?”

At that Bones laughs. “Well, you can try, but she doesn’t have anything to show you.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Even Winona has a few holopics of him growing up, from before she found solace in the black.

“I’m adopted,” he clarifies. “She won’t have any ‘pics of me before I was six.”

Bones’ eyes are guarded. It’s personal information. In this day and age, with excellent healthcare and few murders, kids don’t tend to get orphaned. They tend to be taken away by the state. It’s rare, but it happens.

Jim shrugs. “So I get to see adorable holopics you as a kid?”

Bones shoves him then and Jim retaliates by pulling him down so Bones falls and ends up straddling him on the bed. It’s almost sexual for a moment until Bones gets and evil glint in his eye and starts tickling him.

“Mercy,” Jim laughs. “Mercy, doc.”

That’s how Eleanor finds them. Two grown men having a tickle fight.

“Leonard _Horatio_ McCoy, I thought I raised you better than this!”

Bones gets off him immediately. “Sorry Mama,” he says, eyes on the floor.

He looks a lot like a kid who just got caught with his hand in the sweet-jar.

“And you, Mr. Kirk. You should be ashamed of yourself too!”

Jim freezes at this. “Sorry ma’am,” he tries. He’s not had a lot of experience with mothers, so he goes for polite.

“Dinner is going to be in an hour,” she says, obviously satisfied. “I want this door kept open until then and no more fooling around.”

She shakes her finger threateningly before leaving the room. Jim only has to meet Bones’ eyes for a moment before they’re laughing. Jim can feel tears streaming down his face as his stomach heaves. Two grown men caught and scolded by Bones’ mother for a tickle fight. They end up curled on the double bed together, Jim’s head on Bones’ chest. Jim’s a tactile guy and Bones is touch-starved most of the time, so they often end up close like this.

“Oh my god,” he gasps. “Your mom is _badass_. No wonder you never got into any trouble as a kid.”

Bones smiles. “She is something. And who says I never got into any trouble as a kid?” he says, waggling his eyebrows.

“No criminal record,” Jim replies. “All records of Starfleet personnel become available to other Starfleet members. It’s insane how many officers have a record, I thought that Pike must have pulled some strings to get me in, but it turns out that previous convictions mean nothing if they were only petty offenses and they don’t happen again. Plus if you commit a crime as a Starfleet officer they can hold you forever _and_ you get a longer sentence.”

He’s rambling a little because it’s incredibly invasive and a breach of trust to look up someone’s record just because you can. It’s not like accidentally finding out.

Bones just rolls his eyes and admits that he was pretty much the model child growing up.

“I think it disturbed Mama that I never skipped a class, or got caught drinking while underage. She was completely prepared for me to be a Hell-Raiser like her and Papa were. It was normal for teenagers to get in to trouble and I just didn’t.”

“You got a degree instead,” Jim says.

Jim has multiple degrees, much like Bones, but his were mostly earnt during his stays in jails and rehabilitation units. It’s true that education often prevents crime, but Jim never cared much until Starfleet. Getting degrees was just a way to pass the time. While Bones was graduating high school at fourteen and getting his undergrad, Jim had been stealing and fighting to get him away from his uncle. In the end it was the only way he knew how to live.

“I guess it was my way of rebelling. My parents were prepared for drinking and drugs so I did the exact opposite.”

“You’re amazing. You know that right?” Jim says.

Bones huffs and doesn’t reply.

“Seriously,” he says, because Bones just doesn’t see himself the way Jim does. “You’re insanely clever _and_ you’re the kindest person I know.”

This time Bones sits up, dislodging Jim from his chest. “Where’s all this coming from?”

“What do you mean? I say this shit all the time?”

“When you’re _drunk_ Jim. Or when you want something and think flattery is going to get you anywhere.”

“ _In vino veritas_.” He looks Bones in the eye. “I meant every word.”

Bones flushes a bright red, but smiles none-the-less. It’s a shy, personal smile that Jim resolves to see more often.

“I’m not sure about all that,” Bones says, voice warm. “But thanks Jim. That means a lot.”

Jim pulls him back down and settles his head on Bones’ chest.

“Am I gonna get to meet any of your school friends?” he asks. It’s the kind of thing you do on a visit to someone’s hometown. He’s read about it.

To his surprise, Bones chuckles. “I was four years younger than my peers. Nobody wanted to be friends with the guy whose voice hadn’t broken yet.”

It’s remarkably similar to Jim’s own experiences at school. “Yeah, and the kids your age don’t want to associate with you because you’re the asshole genius who skipped a grade.”

“My mom wasn’t exactly happy, but after a couple of birthday parties which everyone declined she kind of gave up and let me make friends on the gifted kids camps she sent me on. So I had friends, but not from around here.”

That makes Jim a little happier. Bones deserves friends because he’s an awesome person. Jim more than made up for his solitary childhood with the wealth of short-term and longer-term friendships and relationships he cultivated when he left home at sixteen. He still keeps in touch with a number of the people he met on his six year journey on the road.

“Going to med school was the first time I really made friends who lived near me,” Bones continues. “Hardly any of the medical students gave a damn that I was younger than them, they just cared about getting through it, same as me. We were all adults and a lot of the other guys were early graduates, so there was less of a gap.”

Jim did his courses remotely. He definitely made up for it in other areas though.

“I met my ex-wife there too.”

Jim knows a lot about Jocelyn Darnell. He knows she’s five years older than Bones and picked him up in a coffee shop a few weeks into his first semester at med school. He knows they had a whirlwind romance and they were married shortly before his twentieth birthday. He also knows that Jocelyn had very rigid ideas about what made a marriage and slowly became disillusioned with the man she chose and his demanding career. She only took six months after the divorce was finalized to remarry and she broke Bones’ heart by doing so.

They sit in silence for a bit until Eleanor calls them down to dinner.

***

“So, Jim,” Eleanor starts, “Where are you from?”

They haven’t even picked up their cutlery yet, though the meatloaf smells amazing and the shear amount of vegetable side-dishes on offer are overwhelming. If Jim had had this kind of home-cooking when he was a kid, he would never have left home at sixteen.

“Well, ma’am…”

“Eleanor.”

“Well, Eleanor, I was born in an escape shuttle from the USS Kelvin, but I grew up in Iowa,” he says. “Riverside.”

Bones nudges his foot from across the table and Jim smiles at him.

“Oh, how lovely!” Eleanor says. “That’s the town where Starfleet does its starship construction, right?”

“That’s right. I think half the town are employed by Starfleet and the other half are reliant on Starfleet personnel for trade,” Jim says. “Believe me, you don’t want to even hint that the ‘fleet is anything less than perfect unless you want to be run out of town by pitchfork wielding townspeople.” He smiles his patented charming smile, guaranteed to win over every lady.

Eleanor laughs for a moment before asking her next question. Luckily he has enough time for a bite of meatloaf that has him briefly ascending to heaven.

“So what do your parents do?”

Bones chokes on his food and it takes all of Jim’s self-control not to burst into laughter at how the only people in the world not to recognize the Kelvin Baby are the McCoys.

“Well, my Mom is a Starfleet Engineer involved in the design of new starships in Riverside and my Dad was an officer on the Kelvin,” he says. People always expect him to be sad, but the truth is that he can miss the absence of a true father figure in his life, but he can’t actually miss a man he never knew. It’s hard on his Mom sometimes, especially since she found out that Frank was a bastard who hurt her kid when she was on business trips, but it is what it is.

“Oh, how sad,” Eleanor says, which earns him another nudge from Bones. “Everyone should have the opportunity to meet their father.”

It all sounds about normal until Eleanor pales and glances at Bones nervously. His friend is entirely too focused on his string beans, but Jim has no frame of reference for what she’s talking about. Judging by Bones’ reaction it’s probably something bad. His brain whirs and he quickly puts together the idea of adopted and Bones.

Kids get adopted for one of two reasons: dead parents or terrible parents. Both of which can cause this kind of uneasy silence. He won’t ask Bones and he won’t push Bones. The man knows Jim is here for him and in all honesty, Jim is selfish enough to not want to know that more bad things have happened to him. He cares about his best friend too much for that.

“I don’t know,” Jim says, breaking the silence. “I had my grandparents to show me how to be a ‘real man’.”

Bones raises a disapproving eyebrow at him and, to his surprise, Eleanor does too. Like Mother like son, apparently.

“I mean a father figure to take me fishing and stuff,” he tries, hyper-aware that he’s digging himself a hole.

“Mama took me fishing,” Bones says. “Papa taught me to sew.”

“And together we learned a lesson that fishing is boring,” Eleanor says.

Jim grins at that.

“How counter-culture of you!” he says.

Bones is _Southern_. When he speaks, sometimes it’s like Jim’s been dragged back to the 20th century, complete with respect for women meaning keeping them in the house. Hell, Bones insults people’s heritage on a daily basis. Now he finds out that Bones has a cool mom who raised him alone from age twelve and taught him how to fish.

“We live in a society of equals, Jim,” Eleanor says. “It’s hardly counter-culture anymore. Now, if I insisted on bringing Leonard up as a Vulcan or an Andorian or using the methods of 16th Century China, that would be counter-culture.”

Jim has a sneaking suspicion that he’s being teased and it’s kind of nice.

“Do you have children?” Eleanor asks suddenly, and it’s Jim’s turn to choke.

“No. No I do not,” he says. “No children. No.”

Bones smiles into his meatloaf, no doubt remembering every time he’s reminded Jim to use protection despite the fact that he’s never had an STI or even nearly had one. He’s not equipped to raise a child. He has daddy _and_ mommy issues.

“What about a partner?” comes next.

His gaze flickers to Bones, who is once again staring intently at his string beans.

“I’ve been on a couple of dates at the Academy, but nothing has really worked out. Before that I was traveling.”

“By dates you mean casual sex I assume,” Eleanor says and Jim nearly falls out of his seat in shock.

“Mama,” Bones tries. “Please be nice.”

“Leonard, I am no fool. This young man is clearly waiting for The One but not willing to let his needs pass by the wayside,” she says with a pointed look at her son.

Jim can’t believe it. He wishes he brought a PADD down with him just so he can record this. Eleanor is the mom he _wishes_ he had and possibly the only person who can render her son speechless.

“Oh my god,” Bones says after a moment. “I am not talking about this with you and _not_ in front of a guest.”

Eleanor grins, an evil twinkle in her eye, but stops torturing her son. It sadly means she gets to start torturing Jim again, like she knows Jim has feelings for her son and needs to vet him fully. Actually that’s probably not too far from the truth.

Luckily she waits until dinner is finished and her son is washing the dishes before pouncing.

“How long have you been in love with my son?” she asks.

He freezes because he doesn’t know himself. Bones is attractive. You’d have to be blind to not notice. His Starfleet physical education has perfected an already-perfect ass and helped to tone his broad shoulders and muscled arms. He’s gorgeous physically.

Then there’s the fact that Bones is the best person he knows and Jim can’t possibly be good enough for him. He’s grumpy to Jim’s sunny personality, cares enough to yell at Jim for any injury _including_ the time he dislocated his thumb trying to put up shelves for him, and he sticks by Jim without judging him. Bones is wonderful and Jim sleeps around with everyone to hide the fact.

He shrugs in lieu of a verbal response.

“Have you told him yet?” she asks.

“God, no,” he replies.

“Because my son is wonderful and you would be lucky to have him, but he is blind as a bat when it comes to noticing things like the fact that his best friend is in love with him.”

Jim blinks.

“You’re not warning me off?” he asks in confusion.

“No, I am not. I have never seen Leonard look at _anyone_ the way he looks at you. He loves you too, but he’s been so hurt in his life that he won’t tell you himself.”

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” Jim says, heart soaring at the idea that his love might be reciprocated.

“You won’t,” she says, patting him on the arm. “Just think about it, okay?”

They’re interrupted by the sudden appearance of Bones in all his scowling, grumpy glory. Jim is in love with his best friend but too much of a coward to do anything about it.

***

They dress for bed separately, each taking a turn in the bathroom. Jim’s brought along pajamas, proper soft plaid bottoms and a light cotton tee to sleep in. He doesn’t want to make things weird by sleeping in his boxers with Bones.

His friend slides into the room, also in pajamas, though his pants hang low on his hips, revealing a sliver of skin. Jim’s going to die from the strain of hiding the fact that he likes Bones.

They get into bed together, Jim nearest to the wall. The moment the light turns off it’s awkward. He can feel the heat radiating from the human radiator next to him and they’re both lying stiffly, just inches from each other, and not touching.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but Jim _wants_ to touch him. They always touch when they collapse into a bed together in varying states of exhaustion, drunkenness, or upset. It’s actually weirder that they’re _not_ touching.

Thoughts sorted out, Jim moves before he can second-guess himself and flops himself over to Leonard and ends up snuggled close with his head on Bones’ shoulder and Bones’ arm around him. It’s nice and comfortable and _still_ awkward.

“I wanted to join Starfleet when I was younger,” Bones says. “I was obsessed with going to the stars and being a xeno-archeologist. The stars were Papa’s idea.”

Jim sits up and stares at Bones, half-shrouded in darkness; in return Bones avoids his gaze.

“You,” Jim says.

“Me.”

“Dr. Aviophobic? Dr. Disease and Danger?”

Bones sighs and rubs his eyes in the patented Bones-exasperation way. “Dammit Jim! Have you ever considered that there’s a _reason_ I never joined until there was no other option?”

Jim shuts his mouth with a click. Teasing is one thing but Bones is tense and obviously upset, which would make the bed-sharing less awkward if Jim makes him happy again; he’d rather share a bed with a happy Bones.

“You can quote the statistics of a shuttle accident all you like, but the truth is that accidents happen. You have no idea what it’s like to hear that the engines have failed and we need to make an emergency landing, which is what panicking pilots say when they’re going to crash and we’re all going to die. I was _twelve_.”

Jim’s heart sinks. Phobias tend to not have any logical basis and Bones is the last person on Earth to deserve to have been in something so stupidly rare as a shuttle crash.

“Mama was away on a dig and Papa and I decided to take a trip to San Francisco and check out the Starfleet museum on Spring break. We hit the ground so hard that most people died on impact. I came out with a couple of bruises and scratches.

“Papa…” he takes a shuddering breath. “Papa bled out before the first responders even found us. He survived just long enough to coach me through delivering a woman’s baby. She went into labor as a result of the trauma she sustained and it was one of the single most amazing experiences of my life. I still get a card once a year on Amelia’s birthday.”

There’s a soft smile on his face, tempered with grief and fear.

“After that I decided I’d be a doctor and never fly again." 

There’s nothing he can do but hug Bones as tight as he can and snuggle back under the covers with him.

“You are one of the bravest people I know,” he says. “It’s insane that you even managed to get on a shuttle at all and now you can pilot one without having to vomit.”

“It’s not bravery. I _had_ to,” Bones replies, relaxing slightly when he realizes Jim isn’t going to dig or judge.

“Oh please,” Jim grins. “You’re the most brilliant surgeon of your generation. No matter what witchcraft your ex-wife whipped up, she can’t take that away from you.”

Bones looks away for a minute. “Ever since Papa died I’ve been living _his_ dream. Became a doctor, which was the best decision I’ve ever made, got married, had a kid. It’s this white-picket life that I never really wanted, because under everything I was still that kid who wanted to see the stars.”

“Not exactly helping your assertions of cowardice,” Jim says.

Bones knocks him in the ribs gently, “Shut up, kid.”

“Nope. Not until you admit that you’re awesome.”

“Are you going to tickle me again?”

Jim smiles and snuggles closer. Coming with Bones has been the best decision ever.


	3. Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con of a Child within the Context of Incest, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
> 
> Sorry so much for the lateness! I was planning on posting a week ago and ended up with a sick bug! Anyway, thank you for the interest and the comments, they really helped me through this week.

Finding a sweet little four-year-old swaddled in Bones’ science blue in place of his friend is a little concerning, but not entirely unheard of on the Enterprise. It’s just never happened to Bones before.

“Where am I?” he asks, accent the most adorable thing Jim’s ever heard.

“Hey there Leonard,” Jim says, figuring out memory regression from the question. “I’m Jim and you’re on a spaceship!”

“How do you know my name?” he asks, frowning the exact same way he does as an adult. “I didn’t tell you.”

“Well sweetheart, you’re actually my Chief Medical Officer, and something happened to you to make you turn little,” he says. “You’re actually a lot older than you are now.”

Honesty is the best way to go they discovered after Jim had tried to bite his way out of sickbay after a similar incident.

Bones looks confused for a moment. “So I’m all grown up but something made me little?”

“Yes,” Jim says. “And that’s why your parents aren’t here and why we need to take you to see a doctor.”

Bones shakes his head, “I’m not allowed to see doctors. Daddy says they’ll take me away from him and I’ll never see him again.”

Jim knows that speech. It’s the one Frank used to give him and Sam. He sits carefully down next to the tiny body of his best friend and secret love of his life and tries not to have a break down right in front of him.

“Did you remember what I said?” he asks, keeping his voice even. “Your daddy isn’t here right now and we need to turn you big again.”

Bones nods. “But they’ll find out about our secret game,” he says. “Daddy says they’ll look at my butt and only he’s allowed to do that.”

A very sick suspicion begins to rise.

“Well what about a nurse? Would that be okay?” he asks.

Bones thinks for a moment and nods. “Daddy didn’t say anything about nurses.”

Jim grins and gets up, “Let’s go then!”

He lifts Bones up into his arms, using his shirt as a type of dress thing for modesty’s sake. He’s tiny and delicate and there are large bruises in the shape of hand-prints on his arms that can’t be anything else other than deliberate. You have to hold really hard to cause that kind of damage, even to a kid. He knows from personal experience. Jim can’t fall apart right now so he just holds Bones as tight as he can on his hip, even though the kid is slightly too heavy and large for that, and heads down to medbay and Nurse Chapel.

“Kirk to Chapel,” he says, comming her on a private channel so she’s at least a little prepared.

“Chapel speaking. Can I help you, Captain?” she asks, a little formal since her return to the Enterprise following his effusive apologies for breaking off their relationship as he did.

“We’ve had a Code Small with Bones and I’m bringing him down for a check-up. He’s scared of doctors though, so I thought you’d be the best person to handle this.”

That’s one way to say it. Better that suggesting that Bones is terrified of doctors for reasons Jim suspects are highly private over commlink.

“Meet you in exam room two sir,” she says. “Chapel out.”

Bones snuggles in, face to Jim’s neck. It’s adorable but Jim’s too busy having a minor freak out to revel in the warm and fuzzy feelings he’s getting from cuddling a pint-sized Bones.

“Hey buddy. We’re nearly there.”

Bones makes a little sleepy noise that cuts through all the worry and anxiety over his friend and lands Jim straight into melting territory. He settles Bones on the biobed and waits with him until Chapel appears and Jim can see the thought process running through her head, same as his. Her eyes linger on the bruises and flick to his flashing with anger and worry before she turns her attention to Bones.

“Hello, Leonard. I’m Nurse Chapel and I’ll be doing your check-up today,” she says, smiling.

Bones shrinks back, reaching for Jim.

“It’s okay Leonard,” he says, letting the boy cling to him. “Nurse Chapel is a very lovely person. All she’s going to do is make sure you’re healthy.”

Bones mumbles something quietly.

“What was that, sweetheart?” he asks.

“She’s the prettiest lady I’ve ever seen,” he says, eyes on the ground.

Chapel glows, “Thanks, Leonard, you’re the most handsome young man I’ve ever seen.”

Bones turns white and shrinks back against Jim. He can feel him shaking. He wants to be sick, to scream and shout at the world at how unfair everything is but he can’t and won’t because he has a little boy looking to him for protection right now.

“It’s okay, Leonard,” he says. “ _Nobody’s_ going to hurt you. There might be a little pinch, but nothing worse than that.”

“Just a little pinch?” Bones asks, sounding terrified.

“Sure. How about I go first?” Jim says, gesturing to Chapel to draw his blood.

Chapel quickly cottons on and uses a minimal approach, drawing blood and running a tricorder over him before doing the same for a much more relaxed little boy. She beckons Jim outside after staring at her tricorder, the doors sliding shut behind her and leaving Jim alone with Bones.

“We’re just going outside for a moment, okay?” he says. “Just yell if you need me; I’m right through that door.”

As soon as he gets outside, Chapel turns around and Jim can tell she’s one step away from crying.

“Jim,” she says, voice shaking. “The scans show signs of sexual abuse.”

There’s a faraway rushing noise in his ears and his world narrows to a single focus: Bones. He can see the little boy through the glass, swinging his legs on the biobed and playing with the tricorder Chapel set down before leaving. He can also see the man he loves, scowling and grumpy and carrying a heavy weight with him for so long without anyone to _help_ him.

The first and only time Jim had suggested they date, Bones had freaked out, told him that he had too much baggage for Jim, and that he deserved someone better. He begged them to stay friends and Jim had respected that, drowning himself in meaningless sex even though his heart wasn’t in it.

It’s so damn selfish of him to be thinking about himself right now.

“What do we do?” he asks, voice hollow. “Is from now or his past?”

If someone on his ship is hurting Bones, they’re getting spaced and _damn_ anyone who dares stop him.

“He had a full workup a few days ago before beaming down to Nosala and there was no evidence of this then. Judging by the partially healed state of the abrasions, I would say this de-aging event has returned him to the state he was in at that age.”

He goes straight from holding it together into a rage.

“This is the 23rd century, Christine! How did this happen?” he yells, looking back at the kid who’s been hurt so terribly, mind chasing all of the ways he needs to fix it.

“It’s rare, but child protection isn’t perfect,” she replies, calmly. “Right now you need to pass command to Spock and look after him. You’re in no state to Captain now.”

She wipes away the few tears that have leaked out, but seems to be holding herself together much better than Jim is.

“Look after Bones,” he says. “Sounds good.”

He heads back into the room and to Bones’ sunny smile. It seems so impossible that this little boy has been hurt so badly, but then again that’s the way kids are. They can hide things too.

“You came back!” he yells happily, hugging Jim right around the middle and face pushed into his stomach.

“’course I did Leonard,” he says, ruffling the boy’s hair.

He can’t help but think that there is some emotional transference from the de-aging. Bones has latched onto him pretty quickly and Jim latched onto Bones when he went through his own episode. Perhaps while mental regression takes place, there is some residual emotion left over.

Jim untangles himself and takes Bones’ hand. “Are you hungry?”

Bones shakes his head.

“Tired?”

A nod.

“How about a bedtime story?”

He gets a little smile.

Jim’s never considered himself to be much of a family man, considering the art of childrearing to be a mystery. With his family history, the chances of him turning into a distant parent who tries but fails due to lack of actual proximity or knowledge, or into an alcoholic who hates children, are high. Now though, with Bones’ tiny hand in his, following him with complete trust, he can see _exactly_ why people have kids.

“Okay then, little guy, let’s get you ready for bed,” he says, rummaging around in his draws and trying to find some of the clothes he kept after his stint as a child.

“Do you want me to shower before you fuck me?” Bones replies.

All his sweet and fluffy feelings rocket downwards to solidify in his stomach. He’s going to throw up. He ends up getting down on his knees instead and holding onto Bones’ shoulders. Jim can’t handle Bones thinking he’d _ever_ treat him like that, no matter what age he is.

“Leonard, I need you to listen to me now,” he says, lacing his voice with every bit of sincerity and conviction he can manage while his heart is being ripped out. “I promise you I will never touch you like that, ever. Kids are too little for that.”

Bones frowns, obviously confused.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Daddy says that I have to.”

His heart breaks a little more. He picks up Bones and sets him down on the bed, sitting next to him at a far enough distance that the boy won’t get the wrong idea.

“Okay sweetheart, I’m going to tell you something very important now.” He pauses, trying to find the right words.” “Sometimes parents make you do things you don’t want to do, like eat your greens and go to school.” Bones scrunches up his face at the mention of greens and Jim is going to tease him forever about that when this is all over. “Sometimes though, parents make you do things which hurt you and that is _never_ okay. Nobody deserves to get hurt.”

Bones looks at his feet. “But what if they’re bad?” he asks, voice small.

“Not even then,” Jim says, rubbing a hand up and down Bones’ arm. “People who love you aren’t supposed to hurt you, even if you’re bad.”

“So Daddy doesn’t love me,” Bones says.

“No,” Jim says. “Sometimes the people we love hurt us. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you, but they can still be wrong.”

“So you’re not going to fuck me?” Bones asks, looking hopeful.

“Never,” he says.

“What about blow jobs?”

“Never,” Jim repeats. “We do nothing you don’t want to do.”

Bones hugs him tight, tiny arms not even reaching around his back.

“Thank you! Thank you!” he says, excited in the way that a four-year-old should be over Christmas, or their favorite foods, not over the possibility that a man isn’t going to _rape_ them.

“Can we go to bed now,” Bones asks, voice small.

“Of course. I’m on the couch, you get the bed.”

He helps Bones get changed into the pajamas Scotty made when Jim was de-aged and tucks him into bed. He tries not to think about the bruises on Bones’ hips or the belt marks on his back and makes himself comfortable on the couch with his PADD. He has a couple of reports to sign off on, but Spock has taken over as Captain while Bones is indisposed. His Vulcan first officer is more than aware of his feelings for his CMO.

Jim’s midway through reading the latest update from ‘fleet headquarters. The ones he’s obligated to read but sends to Spock and gets the highlights from because it’s boring. Bones turns over and whimpers, drawing Jim’s attention. He thinks that’s going to be it when his friend shoots up, letting out a horrifying scream.

Jim is over there in a flash, but not before he has to watch Bones abruptly grow back into an adult, which is honestly something he never wants to see again. It looks painful, bones shifting under the skin and growing in a way that Jim knows must hurt like hell. Bones is growing up.

The moment it stops Bones, back to his normal age, shoots him a worried look before hurrying to the bathroom and locking the door behind him. The shower turns on. Jim can’t go in; it would be another violation. The fact that Jim found out about Bones’ past this way should have been Bones’ choice.

Instead of kicking down the door he sits down, back to the wall and listens to the shower. Soon enough he’s crying, letting all his tears out now where Bones can’t see him. He cries for the childhood Bones had lost and because it hurt him so much to find out that Bones had been raped before he was a kindergärtner. It’s better than getting angry and storming off when Bones might need him.

***

After half an hour, Jim uses his override to force the door. The showers on the Enterprise are warm for fifteen minutes before turning cold. It’s a planned design to naturally reduce water wastage even though the water reclamation systems are almost perfect and can more than deal with longer showers.

Either Bones is no longer in the shower and wasting water, or he’s freezing and heading towards hypothermia.

His friend is sitting in the floor of the tub, fully clothed, and staring blankly into space. He seems completely unaware of his surroundings, not even looking up when Jim turns off the water.

“Hey, Bones,” he says softly. All he gets in return is a blink. “You’re on the Enterprise with me.”

Bones has had to talk Jim down after a panic attack before and Jim uses that knowledge to help him now. He sits on the edge of the tub, close enough for Bones to reach, but far enough that he’s outside of the man’s personal space.

“Do you remember how we met?” he says, keeping his voice even and steady. “I looked like I’d gone ten rounds with a sledgehammer and you had to be dragged out of the toilet you were so scared of flying. Look at us now. I’m captain of Starfleet’s flagship, the beautiful Enterprise and you are a brilliant doctor, scientist and CMO.”

Bones shivers, eyes losing their blank stare and starting to focus.

“We’re in my bathroom right now. I remember you insisting to Command that everyone at least have an en-suite to keep up crew morale. It means some of the crewmen are sharing, but it’s made one Hell of a difference to all our married folks.”

Bones looks at him then, a small smile on his face, “Ensigns Jones and Li kept thanking me for months afterwards.”

Jim nearly collapses under the weight of his relief.

“Hey Jim,” Bones says, sounding about as exhausted as Jim feels. “Sorry for causing a fuss.”

He’s starting to shiver in earnest now so Jim grabs a towel and holds it out to Bones, trying to ignore the way he flinches a little at the sudden movement.

“You have _not_ caused a fuss,” he says emphatically, as Bones takes the towel and drapes it around himself. “Absolutely _none_ of this is your fault. This was something you didn’t deserve to have happen to you and something that you deserved to tell people in your own time. Having that stripped from you caused a normal, _human_ response and I forbid you from apologizing for that.”

“Okay,” Bones says, voice small.

“Do you need anything?” Jim asks next, realizing how loud his voice became as his worry about Bones flooded out all at once.

His friend hesitates for a moment, “Can you stay?”

All the softness and tenderness he feels towards Bones wells up in this moment, the love he’s been hiding all these years. What he and Bones have is special. The only people they show their vulnerability to is each other.

“Of course,” he says.

Jim ends up helping Bones out of the tub. He’s weak after his panic attack, limbs heavy and still a little shaky. He also helps him dry off and get changed into some dry, clean pajamas, the warm flannel ones Bones likes. His skin is a little cold, so Jim gets him into bed and under the covers with him.

Holding Bones in his arms is exactly what _he_ needs right now and from his friend’s reaction, it’s what Bones needs too. The man is a cuddler, head resting on Jim’s chest and arms and legs tangled with his like an extremely clingy octopus.

“I was going to tell you,” Bones says, breaking the silence. “I wanted you to know everything about my life.”

He sounds guilty and Jim is the last person he should be worrying about right now. Telling someone about abuse isn’t entirely about trust. Sure, it’s essential that the survivor trusts the person they confide in, but it certainly isn’t the _only_ consideration. Jim trusts Spock with his life and knows the Vulcan would never treat him any differently and judge him for his own history, but he can't imagine telling the guy about the beatings he took as a child. He's not sure he could handle it if Spock showed no emotion, and would feel terrible if he caused his First Officer to lose control. Sometimes you have to consider the other person’s reaction and feelings too.

“I’m not _mad_ that you didn’t tell me,” Jim replies after a moment. “I know what it’s like, trying to find the right time to bring something like abuse up. Maybe I’m a little hurt, but that won’t last long because I _get_ it.”

“I couldn’t have been more than three the first time he raped me,” Bones says with a shuddering breath. “He’d been… _grooming_ me.” The word is spat out with anger. “I can remember it clear as day and it’s been over thirty years. It’s in my head, like a holovid, waiting for me to replay it any time I feel like remembering one of the worst experiences of my life.”

He strokes a hand up and down Bones’ side gently, comforting himself as much as he comforted his friend.

“They say it never gets easier, being raped, but for me it became my new normal. My biological father would cook me dinner and help me with my letters and rape me all in one night. There was a sort of _comfort_ to it, in the predictability and the routine. It hurt so much and I prayed every day that it would end, but at least I knew he would be happy for a little while.”

Jim’s heart is heavy in his chest. Those feelings of love and hate and fear and joy all wrapped into one are some of the most powerful tools that can be used to control someone. It’s also what causes a Hell of a lot of damage, because the person who is meant to love you and protect you is hurting you, but all those positive feelings are all tied up with the pain.

“It kept getting worse, but I never thought it was _wrong_. All those classes in school about not letting people touch your private parts always say the exception is your parents. It’s why I fought so hard the first time he gave me to one of his friends.”

Bones is shaking as he speaks, voice breaking as he speaks. Jim holds him as tight as he can, not holding back the tears that are pouring down his face.

“I was so fucking scared. I was only five and I couldn’t stop him. All I could do is scream.”

He hears a sob and sees Bones _finally_ start to cry, emotion spreading across his face in a flood. It’s heart-wrenching sobs, the kind Jim’s cried himself after Tarsus. Keeping emotions locked away for so long and keeping secrets, no matter for what reason, is a heavy burden and sometimes all you _can_ do is cry.

“I never fought back after that,” he says around sobs.

Jim holds him tight as Bones cries himself out, whispering words of reassurance that nothing had changed, that Bones grew into an amazing person, and that this doesn’t define him. He keeps telling Bones that he’s safe and cared for and that nobody is ever going to hurt him again.

Eventually the sobs peter out into sniffles and then stop.

“You okay?” Jim checks.

Bones nods. “I got snot on your shirt.”

He has to laugh at that. It’s a typical Bones comment, one of the things Jim loves about him. His friend doesn’t pull punches or beat around the bush.

“It doesn’t matter. It’ll wash out,” he says.

“It’s unsanitary,” comes the expected response.

He takes off the shirt and flings it across the room.

“Problem solved.”

“You’ll get cold!”

Jim gasps theatrically and cuddles closer to Bones, “Even with my own personal radiator?”

Bones grumbles to himself but pulls Jim closer.

They lie together in silence until Jim speaks again. “I don’t need to arrange for any convenient vanishings, do I?”

He would do it too, order the lives of men ended for daring to touch Bones and making him cry.

“Nah. All the assholes involved are either dead or in jail. None of them have managed to complete the courses needed for rehabilitation.”

It’s a relief. He knows they’re out of his reach. He’ll never have to face what he knows he’s capable of. He’d do anything Bones asked of him. Helping him is the only thing Jim can do to help alleviate his own pain.

“Thanks for everything,” Bones says after a moment.

“You’ve done the same for me,” Jim replies. “You’re my best friend and you deserve someone to lean on.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“You’re welcome.”

He squeezes Bones a little, kissing him softly on the head.

“Do you need anything?” he asks after a moment.

“Don’t leave,” Bones replies.

Jim won’t, not even if all of Hell rises to drag him away from his friend. Bones is a grumpy old curmudgeon of a man, but a kind, honest, and loyal one. He deserves friendship and loyalty and trust in return and Jim is going to be the one to give him these things.

He lies in bed, stroking gently though Bones’ hair until the man relaxes and falls asleep. His mind doesn’t stop whirring for long after, focusing on Bones and how much he cares for the man. It’s love, he knows that now more than ever, and Bones _needs_ someone to love him for all he is and will be. At the very least he needs someone other than his mother who actually gives a damn. Bones has friends, but nobody Jim knows who would curl up in bed with him and let him cry for the little boy he once was.

Jim’s job is to be the best friend Bones has ever had until the man decides otherwise and be perfectly content with that. It’s a job he accepts with gladness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I will be replying to comments now the full work is posted. I hope this wasn't too traumatic to read for anyone. I'm already working on a companion piece and a sequel. Thanks again.


End file.
